Customer Reviews

Mathematica in Action

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Stan Wagon's long awaited 3'rd edition of Mathematica in Action fulfilled all my hopes. Every page is filled with deep insight into both topic covered and the related Mathematica implementation. Here is just a small sample of some of the things you will read about and learn:

1) How to effectively plot unstable functions.
2) How to speed up animations
3) Techniques for getting the most out of Mathematica's 3D plotting functions
4) Practical advice and examples using Mathematica's dynamic interactivity features (Manipulate, Dynamic, etc.)
5) Beautiful ways to visualize the behavior of Differential Equations.
6) An entire chapter dedicated to optimization and another to computational geometry (I have only skimmed these at this time)

Naturally the book revisits a lot material from the 2nd edition but there is enough new material to reward owners of older editions, especially with respect to the latest features of Mathematica 7.

The book has a slight leaning towards pure mathematics (whole chapters on such topics as Prime Numbers, Penrose Tiles, Fractals, Pi, Banach-Tarski Paradox and Riemann Zeta Function). Readers whose needs are more firmly rooted in the practical (statistics, finance, image processing, audio processing, parallel processing) might look at some of the other recent Mathematica publications (yes, that is shameful plug!) to fill out their Mathematica knowledge. However, even within the theoretical coverage there is priceless gems of Mathematica know-how that only an author like Stan (who has spent a significant portion of his life using and teaching Mathematica) could provide.

Two added bonuses:

- Many full color images and plots
- The notebooks containing the code (but not text) for every chapter.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book!

Prof.Wagon shares his experience about the difficulties he encountered in ensuring the correctness of the algorithms.

The lessons he offers on the importance of careful thinking and meticulously checking the results of calculations is alone worth the price of the book.

The algorithms in the book require Mathematica 3. They seem to work well with Mathematica 4 as well.

The selection of topics is excellent. This book can provide a great start to a lot fun and learning with Mathematica.

I hope Prof.Wagon brings out a new expanded edition for the current edition of Mathematica soon.

The book is interesting, entertaining and also a ready reference. Gets you thinking of the explorations you can undertake for both professional and recreational purposes.

The book is also typeset very well with glossy pages which add to its attractiveness. I keep it on my coffee table and flip through it while sipping coffee !

I don't know if I'd use this as a first tutorial but the author presents a lot of interesting applications of Mathematica. Good typeset, diagrams, etc.

It's sort of a group of fun mathematical projects which, when doing, you learn more about using Mathematica. The levels of the projects go from beginner to very advanced.

I would recommend it.